


Pulvis et Umbra Sumus

by xvanus



Series: Aegri Somnia Vana [2]
Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Death, Follows on from Memores Acti Prudentes Futuri, Gen, Operation Chimera, PTSD, Tension, Truth and Consequences, outbreak, personality change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 05:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15163385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xvanus/pseuds/xvanus
Summary: When the outbreak happened and Truth and Consequences went dark he had warned Six about that group, about that man in particular. He had pushed for another person to be found, saying that there were other members of the CBRN that could take his place. His protests fell on deaf ears, however, and two days later the man that had haunted him walked through the Hereford doors.OrThe story of the operation in New Mexico with the CBRN, and the impact it has on Doc.





	Pulvis et Umbra Sumus

He had known that this would happen, one day. 

He had tried to deny it, telling himself that he would never see that man again, that Guinea was behind them and that he didn’t have to worry about that any more – but deep down, something had told him that it wasn’t over. 

When the outbreak happened and Truth and Consequences went dark he had warned Six about that group, about that man in particular. He had pushed for another person to be found, saying that there were other members of the CBRN that could take his place. His protests fell on deaf ears, however, and two days later the man that had haunted him walked through the Hereford doors. 

\------ 

While everyone was introducing themselves to the newcomers – Twitch gleefully making a new friend, Montagne and Rook welcoming him into their number with ease – Doc found himself rapidly backing out of the room. He was terrified to let that man into their group, terrified, but he knew he was powerless to stop it. What if this ended like Guinea did? What if his colleagues, his friends, died just like last time? He hadn’t even thought to tell the others about this person, he had kept Guinea to himself, trying to force it down and move past it. He couldn’t blame them for being accepting of the newcomer – but he had to get away. 

He had tried to stay calm, remembering what he had taught himself after the incident and trying to keep his breathing under control, but this time it was different. That man, Lion, he was here. This wasn’t one of those flashbacks to Guinea where Lion would be glaring at him and ignoring his concerns until they were standing in the blood of their friends. This was different, this wasn’t in the past. This was the present, with Lion standing in it.

He had somehow managed to continue backing up out of the room, trying to tear his eyes away from the man who stood by the entrance. He couldn’t look away, though, and he ended up walking backwards into the wall, the sudden impact jolting the fear to take over. As he had slid to the ground, trembling and hyperventilating, trying to tell himself that this would pass and that he was trained to overcome this, the feeling wouldn’t leave. It was too different this time, because Lion was here, here was reality, and reality wasn’t something that could be pushed away and forgotten about. Lion was here, and the image of the blood of his friends was burned into his mind. 

\------

Sitting there against the wall, he had no idea of how long passed. It could have been mere minutes, it could have been well over half an hour. He just couldn’t push past the anxiety like he used to. Ash and IQ were the ones to walk around the corner and then immediately head in his direction, their tones laced with concern as they spoke. They had never seen him like this before – he had always hidden away when he could feel the panic rising after Guinea – but that only seemed to heighten their concern and they sat there with him. He ended up telling them everything, unconsciously starting off in French in his panic but managing to force his way back to English when he realised that he needed to be speaking in a language that they all understood. 

The two other operators were sympathetic, understanding. A part of him had been worried that they would be irritated for his keeping the incident in Guinea hidden, but of course they weren’t angry with him. They could understand his anger and his concern. After hearing about how Lion hadn’t cared for his dead colleagues, about how they had died because of Lion’s own actions, they understood his contempt too. Of course, they stayed more neutral as they hadn’t experienced the same incident that Doc had – but they could understand where he was coming from. 

They were also the ones to bring him back to the path of logic as well. They knew that once Six had made up her mind about the operators then there was no changing that, so they knew that Doc would have to face Lion eventually. Ash was incredibly helpful with that, though, reassuring him that when they got shipped back out to Truth or Consequences that she would try to ensure that he wasn’t sent out in the same group as Lion – she would try to keep them separated for as long as possible.

Ash’s jurisdiction didn’t overrule Six’s, though, and Doc soon found himself following Lion and the other newcomer out into the field. 

\------

At the beginning, Truth and Consequences wasn’t the worst situation that they could have been in. The other CBRN operator, Finka, had taken point during their excursions, and this gave Doc the excuse he needed to reduce any communication with Lion. They still acted as a group, calling out situations and helping one another when needed – but their interactions were strictly kept to a minimum, and only what was necessary was spoken between the two. Furthermore, outside of the field Doc managed to use the research into the cure as an excuse to not engage with the others. He was far too busy for socialisation, and people’s lives depended on it. 

It was during a test run of the cure that everything went downhill, however. 

For one, the cure didn’t work. Upon further investigation he would find that the genetic mutation caused by the virus was too much of a strain upon the regular human body, and that it couldn’t be undone. However, at that point in time their research had been limited, and everything had pointed towards the cure working – so when he had fired a shot of it into one of the affected, he had been too eager to make sure that it would work. He had gotten the team to hold their fire, telling them to wait, that the cure would work, it would work… But the affected had never faltered and it was Lion who put a bullet through its head to stop it from progressing towards them. 

That incident brought up another point of conflict between the two operators, and for the first time since Guinea, Doc found himself standing off against Lion instead of hiding away from him. The two debated viciously over the cure – “you said it was meant to be instantaneous,” “that’s what we thought, but perhaps it just needed more time to work, time we now do not have because you killed that man that could have been brought back-” – but in the end Finka put a stop to their debates. She seemed to take the middle ground between the two, but Doc could tell that she was relieved that Lion had killed the affected man before he reached the group. He was well aware of the fact that death was necessary sometimes, but in this case, the cure had meant to work. It had meant to be life over death.

\------

After only slight further research due to the time-critical component of their mission, the failed cure was developed into a vaccine and deployed to those who thankfully hadn’t been affected yet. However, this still left Truth and Consequences as a problem. While the virus couldn’t spread any more, the affected were still out there, and they could still kill. It didn’t take Six and her advisors long to authorise a methodical sweep of the entirety of the area that had been cordoned off to quarantine the affected. When Six said methodical sweep the operators knew that they weren’t just there to find the affected – they were there to eliminate them. 

It was on one of their “sweep” missions that things took a further turn for the worse. 

Lion had overseen this one, ordering the operators to defend the room that they were hauled up in – instead of seeking out the affected we’ll get them to come to us, he said. They had stood there, defending every entrance point, firing at those that tried to break through. Finka’s area of the room seemed to be the ideal entrance point for the affected, though, and it was evident that she couldn’t hold that area by herself. Doc had turned to help her but Lion had ordered him back in place, even though Finka was evidently struggling. The anger had started rising then, but he had forced it back down – this wasn’t the time for a fight, he could argue when this was over, they were in too precarious of a situation right now. 

After the affected had stopped coming he managed to turn around and help clear Finka’s side of the room, only to notice that the Russian operator wasn’t standing any more. He had rushed over, finding her on the ground clutching her side, and he so desperately wanted to scream at Lion that this was his fault. The only thing keeping him grounded in that moment was his medical training, his mind telling him that fixing catastrophic bleeding was far more important than starting a fight. And so with that he had set to work on Finka with Lion skulking in the background, the tension between the two being the only thing that they could feel. 

Lion had caused Finka to get hurt, just like what had happened before. A resolve started to form in his mind then, and it was one that he couldn’t shake – that Lion would have to go. 

\------

Their final missions in Truth and Consequences had been incredibly hard. While Doc knew that the affected had to be killed, he silently mourned for the people these monsters once were. He seemed to be the only one who listened to the affected speak before they completely turned on the only humans left in the vicinity, and he swore that he could hear them calling for help. He had tried to help, as well, and his efforts had failed. 

He hated having to systematically move through the affected, taking them out one by one, putting extra bullets through their brain to ensure that they really were dead. The knowledge that death was needed had once been a mantra for him, but now it felt like a curse. Those instances that involved death became a burden – as he fought his way through the mutations he could see their figures change into that which he had seen before. 

There was the young terrorist who had been trained from birth to perform this job. That man – no, not a man, he was practically still a boy – had looked to Doc with a silent plea of mercy. He had been conditioned to do this, and in his final moments he was realising that he had been trained to march in to his death. He had moved his hand slightly, the one that was holding a gun to the diplomat’s head and had found a bullet being fired through his own brain instead. Doc didn’t know if the boy had went to shoot the diplomat, or if he was going to surrender, but he had made the call to eliminate the threat. 

There was the group of soldiers, five of them, the ones who had tried to invade the field hospital that he was stationed at. Doc and his group of medics had been there to help either side, they were there bearing the protective symbols of aid on their arms, but the soldiers had entered with weapons raised anyway. They had gone to fire at the medical professionals and volunteers, but Doc and the other trained personnel had gotten there first. 

The worst by far wasn’t even a group that had been killed by him, their deaths had entirely been the fault of another. Guinea was always there, taunting him, the view of his colleagues and friends strewn across the room with polka-dotted blood patterning them was forever burned into his mind. And on top of it all there was always Lion, the one who had brought their deaths – the one that Doc could never forgive. 

\------

Even when they were back home, safely hidden away in Hereford, Doc still couldn’t shake Truth and Consequences from his mind. He powered through his work as if it was the only thing keeping him going from then on, but anyone could see that the passion for his work seemed to have dwindled. Instead of looking at a patient and seeing procedures, he saw the way that they were going to die, and how he couldn’t save them. The visions of those who he had killed before and the affected out in New Mexico plagued his mind, and with it always came Guinea. He looked at Lion with disconnect now. The anger and fear was gone, and there was something continually telling him that Lion needed to go in its place. 

As the constant images of the dead plagued him, he knew that something had changed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy this was originally meant to be a completely different story, but then I started writing more at the beginning of what I originally had planned and turned it into a separate fic. This is largely a set-up for my next fic - at the end of this one we see the beginning of Doc's personality change and in the next one it'll explore that in much more dark detail. One of the main reasons I split those two fics up was in case folk wanted to read about Lion's introduction to Team Rainbow, but didn't want to read dark Doc. 
> 
> (I've also been meaning to write this since before I wrote the first fiction in the series - the plan has been sitting there in my phone memos since Outbreak was first announced. Whoops.)
> 
> The title for this fic means "we are dust and shadow" which is a quote from Horace. I hope you enjoyed this strange descent into dark territory!


End file.
